Accoding to a CITES report in June 2012 African elephant poaching has reached the highest levels ever recorded..The huge populations in West Africa have dissappeared, those in Central and Eastern Africa are critically threatened. An estimated 25,000 elephants were killed in 2011. The figures for 2012 are still being collated, but they will almost certainly be higher still.
In the 1980s poachers killed half of the Africa's elephants. The poaching was only brought under control after the introduction of the universal ban on the trade in ivory by CITES in 1989. However in 1997 CITES downgraded the status of elephants and subsequently authorsied the sale of stockpiles of ivory in both 1997 and 2002. This together with the growing wealth of China, the primary ivory market, has led to a surge in demand for ivory, and to the explosion in levels of elephant poaching.
CITES is meeting at a conference in Bangkok between the 3rd and 14th March 2013. Nothing less than the re-introduction of a total ban on the trade in ivory, will save the elephant population from widespread extinction.
